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We have come a long way since steam and water mechanised production in the First Industrial Revolution. According to the World Economic Forum[1], the fourth and latest revolution is marked by increasingly blurred lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres. It brings innovations based on combinations of technologies, and in this world cyber-physical systems, automation and the Internet of Things (IoT) combine, releasing the potential for scalability and exponential growth. Everything we know will be impacted, customer expectations, product enhancements, collaborative innovation and organisational forms. The Fourth Industrial Revolution in particular is notable for its anticipated velocity, scope and systems impact. It might not seem like it right now, but change is coming, and it is coming quickly. Are you getting ready to Reboot?

“The speed of current breakthroughs has no historical president.” – World Economic Forum

Getting to grips with the potential for new technologies to influence and disrupt existing industry value chains needs to be more than an academic exercise or talking point. The future of work will look, and feel, dramatically different to what we experience today. Continue reading →

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Have you ever been for a walk in the park and not turned around until you’ve had at least one novel idea? That’s what leadership expert Liz Wiseman does.

Luckily at LGIT Smart Solutions, our offices are located in the beautiful Woodlands Office Park in Johannesburg. So we regularly take a breather and refresh our mindsets with a stroll. What is of most importance to us, is what we do with those new ideas and how we lead others to own their new ideas and actions. If we want to solve real challenges at a scale that has significance, we have to move beyond ‘the brilliant idea of one person’. In her book Multipliers– how the best leaders make everyone smarter”, Liz talks about how to do just that.

According to Wiseman, you can choose to be a diminisher or a multiplier. The multiplier shows that others are important by listening, questioning, offering stretch and challenge, and then trusting enough to step out of the way and let action happen. They assume that people are smart enough to figure out what they need to do and they liberate them to get on with the doing (and learning), providing support on the sideline. In this way, the are ‘multiplying’. Continue reading →

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The following statement sounds incredibly much like common sense. Persistence and effort only deliver returns when we truly believe that we can make change happen. You have to be in it to win it. Your own assumptions about what you can achieve, also called your mindset, have profound implications on how you navigate your path and as a result how much you will flourish in the future. At LGIT Smart Solutions, we believe that as the Fourth Industrial Revolution rolls on, the right mindset will be critical for not being left behind. Let’s look at this concept of mindset in a bit more detail.

According to Dr Carol Dweck, a world-renowned Stanford University psychologist, there are two types of mindset. Each has the power to light up or disable the dreams and goals we set in life and at work. The first type of mindset is the fixedmindset. As the title implies, this mindset is shored up by a core belief that our abilities are relatively static and stable, and will not change significantly over time, no matter what we do. Abilities, talents and intelligences are all seen much like a hand that is ‘dealt’ in life. Achievements or right answers are proof of your talents. Failures show you up for what you lack. Because you don’t believe that you can change your hand much, ‘failures’ can have a crippling effect on the positive sense of self. The core belief ‘I cannot change anything’ may lead to a fear or avoidance of new experiences and risky situations. People with a fixed mindset may feel as though they constantly need to prove themselves to others. Continue reading →

The alphabet soup that has emerged in the world since Tim Berners-Lee started the World Wide Web 20 years ago this year, is astounding. From IT to AI to AR to VR, we’re all playing catch-up and the fantasy world that Star Wars and Star Trek made us believe in movies is finally coming true.

We already have Alexa and Siri, but it seems that before we have Data, R2D2 and C-3PO, we will probably have systems like Mother, the computer from Aliens, or HAL on The Discovery from 2001, or simply Computer from Star Trek.

So although the ubiquitous robot is still some way off (which is not the case in countries like Japan), the algorithm and the bot are here now, changing the way the world works. With such great progress, many articles have been written on which jobs will become obsolete the fastest. Think your IT job is secure? Think again…

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Microsoft has announced Intune for Education, a new tier of its existing enterprise application and device management service that’s specifically meant for shared learning environments. Continue reading →

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The Excel ChampSA Finale was held at Microsoft Head Office in Bryanston on 18 Nov 2016, to find the Super Champ who will represent South Africa in the first ever Excel Global Champs!

Four candidates went head to head, battling it out to see who would come out on Top. The competition was by no means easy and all were sitting on the edge of their seats in this exciting last round, which would decide the top SA Champ.

Jackie Blommestijn, one of LGIT Smart Solution’s experienced Excel trainers presented videos in the run up to the final round. Jackie was also given the honour of being a Judge at this prestigious event. After much debating and reanalysing the answers again and again, an undisputed winner was announced. Well done to Corne van Heerden from all of us at LGIT Smart Solutions. Excel Champ second time in a row! You are a worthy winner. LGIT are proud to have been associated with this championship, which has led to your representing SA in the Global Champs to take place early next year.

For all who would love to prove their worth as next year’s Excel SA Champ, click on the VIDEO links below to see Jackie in action, guiding you to becoming an expert in the topics listed:

The story of Microsoft’s love affair with open source technologies continues, In just over 3 years ago, Microsoft’s chief Satya made the (once seemingly impossible) announcement that Microsoft loves Linux and was planning to build tools that would deepen Microsoft technologies’ relationship with similar open source platforms and technologies. In confirmation of this development, Microsoft Press will soon release an MTA training manual for Python. Continue reading →